Settling Old Scores

Like echoes that will not be quieted, scenes from a war that ended nearly 30 years ago are now being replayed at the airport in Raleigh, North Carolina. Clutching white plastic bags of travel documents, bleary-eyed Montagnard refugees from the Central Highlands of Vietnam stream down the arrival-lounge escalator to be met by white-haired American ladies wearing housedresses and blowsy men waving American flags. Joyful members of North Carolina's 3,000-strong Montagnard community are on hand, as are relief workers from Lutheran Family Services who bustle about, counting heads and arranging transportation that will ferry the refugees to their new lives in...